What we support and defend

[carl]

I served under President Reagan and spent '86-'88 backing his hand and prepared to defend my small section of the Fulda Gap.

I don't recall seeing you there.

Nor did I see you when I took my ODA out into the Saudi Desert to link up with the Egyptian Ranger BDE to begin creating a "Arab Coalition" to stand up to the play of Saddam to take Kuwait, nor in the subsequent land operation supporting the lead BDE of that same Arab Coalition in operations in Western Kuwait.

Nor in the Philippines or Afghanistan in support of OEF operations.

Now these are very interesting comments. They bring to mind a question that I will ask you. Here is the setup to the question. You have two American citizens. One has an outstanding military service record. The other American citizen has no military service record at all. When it comes time to vote for representatives, should the vote of the citizen with the outstanding service record count more than the vote of the citizen with no military service record at all? I think they should count equally. What do you think?

Also we have the same two citizens and they have differing ideas. Should the ideas of citizens be weighed upon the merits of the ideas, or should the ideas be weighed upon what the citizens have done in the past? I think the variant ideas should be weighed upon the merits of the ideas themselves, not the rep of those who hold them.

In Desert Storm we moved a very large force very quickly half way around the world because the civilian leaders thought that is what we should do. That was made easier because we had a large standing army already in being, I think anyway. Now that didn't demand the possession of a large standing army, but it was easier because one was around. Or maybe it did demand a large standing army if you use the word demand to mean that it could not have been done without one. I do remember reading that it was a good thing the big army from the cold war was still around.

I almost made it to Germany in 86-88. I was going to go to Octoberfest but I couldn't find anybody to go with me so I didn't go. Does that count?